IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fpr/ifprid/1151.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Peer effects, risk pooling, and status seeking: What explains gift spending escalation in rural China?

Author

Listed:
  • Chen, Xi
  • Kanbur, Ravi
  • Zhang, Xiaobo

Abstract

It has been widely documented that the poor spend a significant proportion of their income on gifts even at the expense of basic consumption. We test three competing explanations of this phenomenon—peer effect, status concern, and risk pooling—based on a census-type primary household survey in three natural villages in rural China and on detailed household records of gifts received on major occasions. We show that gift-giving behavior is largely influenced by peers in reference groups. Status concern is another key motive for keeping up with the Joneses in extending gifts. In particular, poor families with sons spend more on gift giving in proportion to their income than their rich counterparts, in response to the tightening marriage market. In contrast, risk pooling does not seem to be a key driver of the observed gift-giving patterns. However, we show that large windfall income triggers the escalation of competitive gift-giving behavior.

Suggested Citation

  • Chen, Xi & Kanbur, Ravi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2011. "Peer effects, risk pooling, and status seeking: What explains gift spending escalation in rural China?," IFPRI discussion papers 1151, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
  • Handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1151
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ifpridp01151.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. De Weerdt, Joachim & Dercon, Stefan, 2006. "Risk-sharing networks and insurance against illness," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 337-356, December.
    2. Andreas Ammermueller & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2009. "Peer Effects in European Primary Schools: Evidence from the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 27(3), pages 315-348, July.
    3. Rao, Vijayendra, 1993. "The Rising Price of Husbands: A Hedonic Analysis of Dowry Increases in Rural India," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(4), pages 666-677, August.
    4. Jacob M. Markman & Eric A. Hanushek & John F. Kain & Steven G. Rivkin, 2003. "Does peer ability affect student achievement?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 527-544.
    5. Subramanian, Shankar & Deaton, Angus, 1996. "The Demand for Food and Calories," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(1), pages 133-162, February.
    6. Angus Deaton, 2001. "Relative Deprivation, Inequality, and Mortality," NBER Working Papers 8099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Townsend, Robert M, 1994. "Risk and Insurance in Village India," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(3), pages 539-591, May.
    8. Fafchamps, Marcel & Gubert, Flore, 2007. "The formation of risk sharing networks," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(2), pages 326-350, July.
    9. Andreas Ammermueller & Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2006. "Peer Effects in European Primary Schools: Evidence from PIRLS," CEE Discussion Papers 0065, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4392 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Santos, Paulo & Barrett, Christopher B., 2010. "Identity, Interest and Information Search in a Dynamic Rural Economy," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 38(12), pages 1788-1796, December.
    12. Chen, Xi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2011. "Costly posturing: Relative status, ceremonies and early child development," IAMO Forum 2011: Will the "BRICs Decade" Continue? – Prospects for Trade and Growth 7, Leibniz Institute of Agricultural Development in Central and Eastern Europe (IAMO).
    13. David J. Zimmerman, 2003. "Peer Effects in Academic Outcomes: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 9-23, February.
    14. Brown, Philip H. & Bulte, Erwin & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2011. "Positional spending and status seeking in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 139-149, September.
    15. Tara Watson & Sara McLanahan, 2011. "Marriage Meets the Joneses: Relative Income, Identity, and Marital Status," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 482-517.
    16. Charles F. Manski, 1993. "Identification of Endogenous Social Effects: The Reflection Problem," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(3), pages 531-542.
    17. Coate, Stephen & Ravallion, Martin, 1993. "Reciprocity without commitment : Characterization and performance of informal insurance arrangements," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-24, February.
    18. Philip H. Brown, 2009. "Dowry and Intrahousehold Bargaining: Evidence from China," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(1).
    19. Chen, Xi, 2011. "Anatomy of Stigmatized Behavior: Peer Influence and Relative Concern," 2011 Annual Meeting, July 24-26, 2011, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 103644, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    20. Katleen Van den Broeck & Stefan Dercon, 2007. "Social Interactions in Growing Bananas: Evidence from a Tanzanian Village," CSAE Working Paper Series 2007-05, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    21. Roland Benabou, 1993. "Workings of a City: Location, Education, and Production," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 108(3), pages 619-652.
    22. Timothy G. Conley & Christopher R. Udry, 2010. "Learning about a New Technology: Pineapple in Ghana," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 35-69, March.
    23. Boozer, Michael A. & Cacciola, Stephen E., 2001. "Inside the 'Black Box' of Project Star: Estimation of Peer Effects Using Experimental Data," Center Discussion Papers 28524, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    24. Bryan S. Graham, 2008. "Identifying Social Interactions Through Conditional Variance Restrictions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 76(3), pages 643-660, May.
    25. Thomas, Duncan & Strauss, John, 1997. "Health and wages: Evidence on men and women in urban Brazil," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 159-185, March.
    26. Antoni Calvó-Armengol & Eleonora Patacchini & Yves Zenou, 2009. "Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(4), pages 1239-1267.
    27. Giacomo De Giorgi & Michele Pellizzari & Silvia Redaelli, 2010. "Identification of Social Interactions through Partially Overlapping Peer Groups," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 241-275, April.
    28. Zenou, Yves & Calvó-Armengol, Antoni & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2005. "Peer Effects and Social Networks in Education and Crime," CEPR Discussion Papers 5244, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    29. Gustavo J. Bobonis & Frederico Finan, 2009. "Neighborhood Peer Effects in Secondary School Enrollment Decisions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 91(4), pages 695-716, November.
    30. repec:pri:cheawb:deaton_relative_deprivation.pdf is not listed on IDEAS
    31. Michael A. Boozer & Stephen E. Cacciola, 2001. "Inside the 'Black Box' of Project STAR: Estimation of Peer Effects Using Experimental Data," Working Papers 832, Economic Growth Center, Yale University.
    32. Eiji Mangyo & Albert Park, 2011. "Relative Deprivation and Health: Which Reference Groups Matter?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 46(3), pages 459-481.
    33. V. Rao, 2001. "Celebrations as Social Investments: Festival Expenditures, Unit Price Variation and Social Status in Rural India," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 71-97.
    34. Bruce Sacerdote, 2001. "Peer Effects with Random Assignment: Results for Dartmouth Roommates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(2), pages 681-704.
    35. Caroline Hoxby, 2000. "Peer Effects in the Classroom: Learning from Gender and Race Variation," NBER Working Papers 7867, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    36. Steve Gibbons & Shqiponja Telhaj, 2006. "Peer Effects and Pupil Attainment: Evidence from Secondary School Transition," CEE Discussion Papers 0063, Centre for the Economics of Education, LSE.
    37. Rosenzweig, Mark R, 1988. "Risk, Private Information, and the Family," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(2), pages 245-250, May.
    38. Joachim De Weerdt, 2002. "Risk-Sharing and Endogenous Network Formation," WIDER Working Paper Series DP2002-57, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    39. Xu Lin, 2010. "Identifying Peer Effects in Student Academic Achievement by Spatial Autoregressive Models with Group Unobservables," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(4), pages 825-860, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meinzen-Dick, Ruth Suseela & van Koppen, Barbara & Behrman, Julia & Karelina, Zhenya & Akamandisa, Vincent & Hope, Lesley & Wielgosz, Ben, 2012. "Putting Gender on the Map: Methods for mapping gendered farm management systems in Sub-Saharan Africa," IFPRI discussion papers 1153, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    2. Chen, Xi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2012. "Costly posturing: relative status, ceremonies and early child development in China:," IFPRI discussion papers 1206, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    3. Chen, Xi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2017. "Costly Posturing: Ceremonies and Early Child Development in China," IZA Discussion Papers 10662, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Wang, Ruixin, 2015. "Essays on development economics and public economics," Other publications TiSEM e1779514-5b71-4726-925b-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    5. Chen, Xi, 2014. "Fetus, Fasting, and Festival: The Persistent Effects of in Utero Social Shocks," IZA Discussion Papers 8494, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    6. Elena M. Parilina & Alessandro Tampieri, 2018. "Stability and cooperative solution in stochastic games," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 84(4), pages 601-625, June.
    7. Jingqi Dang & Mingda Cheng & Chunhui Ye, 2020. "“Depression from Overestimation”: Income, Perception Bias and Children’s Mental Health in China’s Rural Households," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(3), pages 1-30, January.
    8. Bulte, Erwin & Wang, Ruixin & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2018. "Forced gifts: The burden of being a friend," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 79-98.
    9. Wang, Ruixin, 2016. "Who Should I Share Risk with? Gifts can tell : Theory and Evidence from Rural China," Other publications TiSEM 95c6dbed-3f49-4d5a-987e-2, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    10. Chen, Xi, 2013. "Relative Deprivation in China," MPRA Paper 48582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. repec:unu:wpaper:wp2012-70 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Chen, Xi & Sahn, David E. & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2018. "Social Interactions and Stigmatized Behavior: "Donating" Blood Plasma in Rural China," IZA Discussion Papers 11413, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Xi Chen, 2014. "Gift-Giving and Network Structure in Rural China: Utilizing Long-Term Spontaneous Gift Records," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(8), pages 1-14, August.
    14. Mingzhi Hu & Guocheng Xiang & Shihu Zhong, 2021. "The Burden of Social Connectedness: Do Escalating Gift Expenditures Make You Happy?," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 22(8), pages 3479-3497, December.
    15. Chen, Xi & Zhang, Xiaobo, 2012. "Costly posturing: relative status, ceremonies and early child development in China:," IFPRI discussion papers 1206, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI).
    16. Zhang, Anquan & Ni, Pengfei & Ling, Chen, 2022. "Peer effects in rural housing demand: Evidence from China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 73(C).
    17. Chen, Xi, 2015. "Status Concern and Relative Deprivation in China: Measures, Empirical Evidence, and Economic and Policy Implications," IZA Discussion Papers 9519, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Wang, Ruixin, 2016. "Who Should I Share Risk with? Gifts can tell : Theory and Evidence from Rural China," Discussion Paper 2016-003, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    19. Kanbur, Ravi, 2013. "Exposure and Dialogue Programs in the Training of Development Analysts and Practitioners," Working Papers 180097, Cornell University, Department of Applied Economics and Management.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gioia De Melo, 2011. "Peer effects identified through social networks. Evidence from Uruguayan schools," Department of Economics University of Siena 627, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    2. Vincent Boucher & Yann Bramoullé & Habiba Djebbari & Bernard Fortin, 2014. "Do Peers Affect Student Achievement? Evidence From Canada Using Group Size Variation," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 91-109, January.
    3. Christian Helmers & Manasa Patnam, 2014. "Does the rotten child spoil his companion? Spatial peer effects among children in rural India," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 67-121, March.
    4. Victor Lavy & Analia Schlosser, 2011. "Mechanisms and Impacts of Gender Peer Effects at School," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 1-33, April.
    5. Christian Helmers & Manasa Patnam, 2014. "Does the rotten child spoil his companion? Spatial peer effects among children in rural India," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 5, pages 67-121, 03.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ceremony; gift giving; Peer effect; risk pooling; social network; status seeking;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • D85 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Network Formation
    • R20 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Household Analysis - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fpr:ifprid:1151. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ifprius.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.